


Free To Good Home

by copperbadge



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Coffee, Gen, nonconformity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-01
Updated: 2013-04-01
Packaged: 2017-12-07 05:05:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/744575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperbadge/pseuds/copperbadge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Kid, you're an Avenger now, you do what you want."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Free To Good Home

**Author's Note:**

> [Originally written](http://copperbadge.tumblr.com/post/38223726960/shinykari-copperbadge-the-first-time-clint) in response to an image post about Hawkeye's inability to use a mug, this is set mainly in the comicsverse rather than the MCU.

Avengers Mansion was stranger than Clint had even anticipated. For a kid from the sticks who worked the Coney Island freakshow for a living, the mansion's high ceilings and weird decorations screamed two things:

1) WEALTH

2) WHY HASN'T SOMEONE DEFACED ME?

He knew that #2 was mostly because anything fancy or beautiful soon got smeared with something or written on, in his world; it wasn't that he liked it, it was just a fact. He didn't move in the kind of circles where a blank wall stayed blank for long. Hell, looking at the portraits in the entry hall, he kinda had the urge to draw some moustaches on them himself.

He wiped his fingers subtly on his uniform tunic, nervous about leaving fingerprints on the brass balustrades and the shiny doorknobs. The guy who'd answered the door, Jarvis, looked pretty stiff about that kind of thing -- and Clint didn't really like to leave fingerprints anywhere _anyway_.

Jarvis had shown him quietly and politely to Pietro, who was now giving him the tour, hustling him from room to room with barely-concealed impatience like he knew Clint didn't really belong here.

Which was rich, coming from him; Clint might have flirted with supervillainny, once upon a time, but Pietro had gone all-out for it.

"Kitchen," Pietro said briefly, gesturing at it without going inside. "Stark'll show you the rest, I have things to do."

"Oh, ah," Clint started, because he was not certain Stark had heard good reports of him. He and Iron Man had tangled a few times. And, frankly, Stark was a stylish millionaire socialite; he didn't want to bug a guy like that, especially since -- as long as he didn't screw this up -- Stark would be paying his bed and board for the foreseeable future.

But Pietro was already gone, and then someone yelled "Come in, Jesus, stop lingering in doorways, people use those."

Clint stepped inside cautiously, and was confronted with a man in an elderly undershirt and a pair of stained khakis, with a tangled mop of hair on his head. He sure didn't look like a socialite; he looked, frankly, like a maniac. But his eyes were clever and inquisitive, and he had a nice enough face.

"Hawkeye, right?" the guy, presumably Mr. Stark, asked. "Nice tunic. Are you actually the best marksman in the world?"

"Well, I haven't gone up against everyone in the world, but until someone beats me, I'm'a keep the title," Clint answered before he could help himself. The man laughed.

"Fair enough. I'm Stark," he said, offering his hand.

"I figured," Clint said, accepting the handshake, and Stark grinned at him.

"Hey, do you use guns, too?" he asked.

"Sure, I'm pretty handy with 'em," Clint said.

"Great, I'll find you some. Listen, I know I'm supposed to be showing you around the machines and the tech stuff but I need five minutes to caffeinate first, everyone here is younger and in better shape than me," he continued, tapping his fingers on the counter. He turned to the coffee pot and stared at it hungrily as it percolated.

Clint was going to offer that Stark actually looked pretty built, but then he thought that might be weird, so he didn't.

"I prefer bows," he said instead.

"Well, that's bizarre. You'll fit right in," Stark replied.

"Um..."

"No, I'm serious. I have never met such a confirmed gang of nonconformists as the Avengers. They make me look normal, and people only call me eccentric because you can't call millionaires crazy."

The coffee machine beeped, and Stark sighed in relief; as Clint watched with a mixture of horror and fascination, he took the pot out from under the percolator, lifted it to his mouth, and drank.

"What?" Stark asked, after he'd polished off about a quarter of the pot.

"I uh. You guys don't have mugs?"

"Sure we do."

"You don't...use them?" Clint asked. Maybe this was part of the eccentricity.

"I'm an engineer, okay, I value efficiency," Stark said. "The fastest way to get the coffee from where it is, ie pot, to where it should be, ie inside of me, is the direct route," he finished, taking another long slug.

"You can do that?" Clint asked, eyes wide.

Stark gave him a grin and offered him the pot. "Kid, you're an Avenger now, you do what you want. Social niceties no longer apply."

When Clint got back to his one-room cold-water flat that night, he set out the box he'd scrounged from behind a grocery store and began packing up his belongings to move to the Mansion. A couple of chipped coffee mugs in his cupboard caught his eye.

The next morning, when he walked away with the box, a suitcase, and his bow case and quiver, he left behind a trio of mugs in front of his door with a sign reading FREE TO GOOD HOME.


End file.
